Democrat Matsunaka to run against incumbent Musgrave

Calling himself the Smarty Jones candidate, Stan Matsunaka promised to give Rep. Marilyn Musgrave a run for her money in the 4th Congressional District.

After losing the district to Musgrave in 2002, Matsunaka realizes that voters might see his chances of defeating her two years later as a long shot.

But like Smarty Jones, a horse who some said couldn’t be a contender but may become the first since 1978 to win the Triple Crown, Matsunaka hopes to prove the naysayers wrong.

“The mood in this district since the last election has changed quite a bit,” Matsunaka said Thursday at the University of Northern Colorado, where

he announced his bid to Greeley voters.

“The most burning issues in this district are not in California or Massachusetts,” he said, referring to the federal marriage amendment proposed by Musgrave in response to

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gay marriages in those two states. “We need someone who is going to focus on our future.”

Matsunaka waited until the day before the Colorado Democratic Party’s state convention to announce because he wanted to make sure he had enough support. He also had to think long and hard about subjecting himself to another nasty campaign that has the potential for personal attacks, he said.

Eventually, he decided to run because he thinks the voters in the district — both Democrats and Republicans — are ready for a change. Some of his support could come from crossover Republicans who think Musgrave is too conservative, he said.

But relying on Republican votes is nothing new for him, Matsunaka said. A Republican district in Loveland voted him into the Colorado Senate.

The division in the Republican party is even more pronounced after two years of Musgrave, he said.

“It’s obvious to me that there is a split in the party,” Matsunaka said. Republicans may not give public support, he said, but in the privacy of a voting booth they will speak their minds.

Others also said they were counting on Musgrave’s own politics to do her in.

“I hope that voters in the 4th Congressional District will have a little buyer’s remorse,” said Kevin Noland, coordinator for the John Kerry presidential campaign in Weld County. “Marilyn has shown us what her agenda is: Gays, God and guns. We have a lot more on our plate as a nation to deal with.”

Matsunaka said he would focus on getting federal funding for transportation, education and health care. He would focus on brining alternative energy programs, such as wind farms and biomass crops, to the district.

But if Matsunaka believes that Musgrave is campaigning on one issue and hasn’t helped her constituents, he “must have had his head in the sand the last two years,” said Guy Short, Musgrave’s chief of staff.

Over the past two years, Musgrave has worked for affordable health care, fought against a gas tax hike, voted for tax cuts, which helped everyone in her district, and worked to install Head Start in Colorado Schools, Short said. She also helped get $3 billion for drought relief and secured more transportation funding for the 4th Congressional District than any representative who came before, Short said.

In the last election, “we ran on our record and Stan ran away from his, and I expect this one will be the same,” Short said. “Voters in Greeley and Weld County won’t be any more receptive to Stan’s tax and spend policies than they were two years ago.”

Both camps agreed that money will play a big factor in this election.

Musgrave already has raised $1.5 million and Matsunaka believes he needs at least $1 million to be competitive.

In the 2002 election, Musgrave defeated Matsunaka by a margin of 55 percent to 44 percent.

Noland said he hopes Matsunaka can find monetary support outside the district, as well.

“We’ve gotten calls from Texas from people wanting to know who is running against Marilyn because they want to send money,” he said.